NB Alnwick

We very much doubt if Alnwick will leave the marina again until well after the weather breaks - water levels on the Oxford are much lower now and we struggled in places when we returned from the IWA Harborough 75 event. It is a shame for those who have booked hire boats but probably inevitable given the recent weather and the general shortage of stored water.

We wonder how long it will be before we see the BBC investigating boat ownership and marina monopolies? It makes us cringe when we see boat ownership being pushed as an affordable lifestyle for those unable to get on the housing ladder.

I know that all our retailers are having a tough time these days with a shaky economy and massive competition from the online multi-nationals. So I thought it might be good to post praise where praise is due! Having decided to purchase a Statesmen Legacy 50x50 LPG free standing stove to replace our failed Vanette we shopped around for the best deal. Eventually we decided to go with Midland Chandlers because they are currently offering a 10% discount and free delivery on these. We placed our order on Wednesday and it was delivered this morning. Nice One!

So Some even have vintage engines! https://www.ukaviationsales.com/aircraft-for-sale/boeing-stearman-a75n1-2/

It is easy to spend more than £5,000 a year on the licence, mooring, insurance and maintenance without moving a boat from its mooring. That said, there are other hobbies that can be far more expensive.

I was loaned a petrol engined early Landrover during the harsh Winter of 1976. It averaged 13 mpg making regular journeys between Rugby and Leicester or Loughborough. It got me through the snow but it cost me deep in the purse!

We have taken out our old Vanette oven and hob - we will keep them until the end of July. Please message us if anyone wants to pick them up for spares from Cropredy Marina. Free of charge.

We have just removed our Vanette GG7000 built in LPG oven and the matching Vanette 4001/2 hob. Both were installed towards the end of the last century and have given us 20 years of service since we bought our boat in 2005. Unfortunately, various recent failures and a lack of available spares prompted our decision to take them out and look for suitable replacements. Now that they are out, we can see that there is corrosion in the oven unit framework and there has been some heat damage to confirm that we have made the right decision. Unfortunately, there appears to be nothing on the market that will fit into the existing cut-outs and we are faced with the prospect of having to re-design and rebuild our galley work station. We have considered slotting in a Statesman free standing cooker like this one. For this reason we have been following this thread with interest.

Our Kelvin K3 as installed in our boat typically gives between two and five miles per gallon. A lot depends on the depth of water and how hard we try to push along. The most economical speed on the Oxford Canal is just over two miles an hour (equivalent to 300 rpm) and this burns fuel at the rate of 2 Litres an hour - mainly due to our boat being too deep in the water for a silted up canal. That said, we have just got back from a round trip of 165 miles on a mix of canals and rivers and we used 45 gallons of diesel - so 3.67 miles per gallon! Edited to add that we also negotiated 150 locks on that trip - which will have reduced our mpg.

We arrived about an hour after the flight had opened on Thursday so we missed the initial queue. We had to wait for four boats to come up then the volunteers on duty were really helpful and we managed the journey from Crick to Marston Doles in a day - leaving us with another day to get home to Cropredy. In general terms and given the number of boats currently on our waterways, I think they (volunteers/C&RT) are managing rather well.

We still have our Vanette LPG oven and hob - they were fitted to a great many caravans and boats and were a decent bit of kit. Unfortunately, production ceased a couple of decades ago and new parts are not easy to source. Caravan breakers occasionally offer salvaged parts. We have considered replacing ours - but these days, the choice is limited to expensive or unsuitable foreign imports.

That same image appears to show the stern of a boat in the lock - so perhaps the damage was caused by a boat descending the locks rather than ascending.

It wasn’t us! We are here already and, by all accounts, we may be here for some time!

Yes - it is currently in the marina at Cropredy.

Very well explained! And, this is really the point that I wanted to make with my initial post. The channel should have been wide enough for boats to pass (that said, the wide beam boats that use this navigation may have struggled) but there are overhanging trees partially blocking the navigable channel. As such, they present a very real danger in the circumstances that occurred. Once aware that a boat was coming downstream, it was too late for the pair coming upstream to take avoiding action safely. Similarly, my boat (going downstream) had no really safe options - my reaction was to keep in gear and steer clear of the pair. This was the best course of action and would have been safe but for the dangerous vegetation. This has been reported to C&RT and hopefully they will be able to use one of their wide beam work boats to cut back the overhanging trees with appropriate warnings in place to let other boaters know that they are “making life better by water”.